This post is a month late and maybe a dollar short, but I think it’s worth talking about anyway. Last month, Laura Miller, co-founder of Salon, wrote a piece that basically stated NaNoWriMo is not only worthless, but damaging to books and the literary community. Many bloggers took umbrage with this, notably Campatron, who said that NaNoWriMo is vital to keeping creativity alive in this country. At the risk of sounding controversial, I’m going to say that they’re both a bit right and a bit wrong. (And possibly a little bit country and/or rock and roll, although that rumor is unconfirmed.)

Readers vs. Writers?

Miller’s main points are: NaNoWriMo participants would write regardless of whether they devoted a month to meeting daily writing quotas. The material they produce in this time period is crap. They submit that crap for publication, and we don’t need to publish more crap. Too many writers don’t read. Readers are underappreciated and not enough people read. People should read more.

Campatron’s main points are: NaNoWriMo participants wouldn’t write regardless, because the world doesn’t value creativity enough. There aren’t too many books already in the world. Not everyone who participates tries to publish. All the writers she knows read, and in fact the NaNoWriMo organization puts together book drives and young writer programs. Miller’s piece is part of the problem in a country that doesn’t support creativity among kids and adults alike.

Seems to me that both authors are looking at the whole thing with too narrow a focus. Laura Miller’s looking at it from the book publishing side of things, and Campatron’s looking at it from the unpublished writer’s side of things, so they both miss realities the other sees all too clearly.

Miller’s right in that there aren’t as many readers as there used to be — just look at this National Endowment for the Arts report on declining reading rates among young people especially. Maybe Campatron is privileged to be surrounded with writing AND reading friends, but I know writers who don’t make the time to read, despite the wise adage that in order to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader. People aren’t reading a diverse array of books, is one of the main problems. The past fifteen years has seen the rise of the mega-blockbuster, which makes some people very, very rich, and keeps more oddball or esoteric efforts on the edges with no money from the publishing houses to support even a small print run on them. Everyone’s reading Dan Brown, and all the money Random House pumps into publicity and print runs on his latest novel means there’s that much less available for a debut novel or poetry chapbook. Publishing houses and readers play the blame game with each other, but the fact is that publishing houses are taking fewer and fewer risks in publishing unknown authors and unusual literature, and readers are buying fewer and fewer books that aren’t on the bestselling shelves. Hardworking indie publishers are doing their best to combat this, and I commend them for their efforts, but it is too bad that major publishing houses are so convinced that their industry is dying that they’re all scrambling to hoard a piece of the pie they’re familiar with instead of, I dunno, baking a whole new pie.

Miller’s point that writers need readers sounds simplistic, but it’s true and I agree it’s a point that doesn’t get as much attention as it ought. As my adviser in college once told me, reading is a creative act just as important as writing. We don’t need readers only for book sales; we need them to share interpretations and inspirations and disagreements with other readers, and to talk about what those books mean to their lives. We need readers to share in the imagination of the writers. I totally agree with Miller’s fear of the decline of reading and the attendant decline in quality writing. Reading gives writers ideas for new ways to say what they want to say, and enriches their own imagination. A well-read author is an author I want to read.

But Campatron is right when she says that discouraging writers from participating in something like NaNoWriMo is a disgraceful thing for someone involved in literature to be saying. Miller’s focused on the idea that all these writers are submitting their first drafts for publication, and no doubt some do. There are always going to be some people who are convinced their every word is a perfect pearl and they deserve publication and a seat next to Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer at the Hot Shit Writers’ Table. But there are more writers out there with a realistic view of things, who don’t print out hundreds of pages on November 30 and cram it all into envelopes bound for the overworked editors of Little, Brown. These writers participate in NaNoEdMo in March, devoting their time to revising and editing those novels they pumped out the previous November. These writers are on writers’ forums online, and perhaps in writing groups in their hometowns. These writers are serious about the act of writing, and when the NaNoWriMo website admits that writers will write a lot of crap during November, those serious writers know that doesn’t mean they should just be done with it. They know there are many more steps to publication. Or alternately, as Campatron points out, they don’t even aim for publication but write just for the joy of writing, and why would you ever be against someone doing something that brings them joy like that? Miller says, “there’s not much glory in finally writing that novel if it turns out there’s no one left to read it,” which is true if your ultimate goal is to have people read your work. But if you write only for yourself, then fine, keep your novel in your home and enjoy it yourself. It’s not hurting anyone and why would Miller have a problem with that?

Campatron is 100% wrong when she says, “the world DOES need bad books. Without the bad books there would be no good books because you need to start somewhere goddammit.” The world needs bad DRAFTS of books, but there is no need to have dreck published and sent out into the world to be consumed and tossed aside. Writers need to start somewhere, sure, but that somewhere should be in something like a NaNoWriMo session or a writing group, not in a published book. How many authors admit they spent years on their first novel, only to realize they needed to get it out of their system so they could write their second, much better novel? (Many, is the answer.) Not every published book has to be perfect, but it has to be more than the first effort, because books are too precious to waste. And that is something that both Campatron and Miller seem to agree on, if nothing else.